the things she left behind
by mirajens
Summary: a breakup told by things left behind but not quite forgotten —miraxus
1. item one

**Item one: a billiard set.**

The one she'd gotten him for his birthday.

He remembered coming home, following the strains of Sinatra from his den, seeing her sitting cross legged on the gleaming Mahogany. A whiskey sour in her hand, a smile on her face. Lace barely covering anything, the Newports she thought he couldn't smell lingering in the air.

He remembered more: Fucking her on the felt, her screams droning out the Blues, hands digging into the netted pockets for better stability. After, she complained that her back hurt and when he looked, he saw the beginnings of bruises forming: imprints of ivory spheres she'd been pounded onto leaving marks.

Her lilac lace was everywhere: some on the ground, some on the table, some still hanging off her shoulders. He remembered her rising from her sprawl, rising on her tiptoes, pressing her naked body flush against his fully clothed one. "Happy birthday, Laxus." Mirajane said with a sweet, lingering kiss. He remembered the sourness of her drink on her tongue, never to be tasted again. He hated whiskey sours now.

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lmao me thinking im done with fanfiction


	2. item two

**Item two: an mp3 player.**

This time, a gift from him to her. When he used it for the first time, she had already packed her bags, leaving just some odd items too painful to bring with her, and this was one she left on the night stand on her side of the bed, bright pink and conspicuous. It was filled with love songs and barely anything else; in fact, just some of the rock songs she liked from his playlist that wormed its way into hers. They were still love songs, he supposed. Bon Jovi singing about trust and Journey about faithfulness: things Laxus didnt have himself but now wished that he did.

The melodies were happy. Some slow and lustful and a little sad but many songs teased some small joy from his chest despite knowing that she was gone and as likely to come back as he was to apologize.

He missed her and he hated that her songs sounded just like how he felt when she was around. If anything, the easy beat and chirpy tone reminded him of every second his house was void of the sunshine she brought and his heart deprived of the happiness only she could instill in him.

He took the buds out of his ears, his eyes shut because they were burning and his insides turning because he was full of regret.

He couldn't remember Mirajane unaccompanied by music. Mirajane, during the strains of the mornings, would already be humming a tune as she fixed breakfast or watered her vegetables. Late at night when he came home and she was singing in the shower ("Keep singing," he said, even as he made it nearly impossible to speak with his hand wedged between her thighs and his lips on her neck). Farther to the end of the night when she sang until he was asleep and the last thing on his mind was how she sounded like home.

He supposed he'd have to get used to silence from now on.


	3. item three

**Item three: a garden**

Her garden. Love and sweat and happiness all bloomed into a seventy square foot plot, surrounding a once happy home, now just something Laxus looked at bitterly every morning when he needed to put the coffee on.

The lawn was abundant in roses. Pinks, reds, whites and hybrids teased from buds into blossoms by her gentle green hands, beautiful like her until they rotted into something ugly and it was just the thorns left. Maybe it was telling. Laxus remembered Mirajane was a pit of thorns now, too.

( _"If you don't take care of flowers, they wither,"_ )

There were more on the backyard. Daffodils: happiness found. Iris: hope. Hyacinths, marigolds and primrose: he'd started fucking up.. Red carnations: the aftermath of it all. It was their tale told in pretty pinks and vibrant yellows, the bitter end predicted in the calm blues at the corner of the plot. He hated flowers now and he hated that all along he'd been listening to her educate him about their meaning even as he bitched about the sun and begged to go back inside.

It wasn't beautiful now. It desaturated into ruin: petals long wilted off and stems and leaves curling into themselves and onto the ground. It was always a nasty thing to see radiance die.

Later that week, Laxus found a shovel and tore his land up. Roots plucked, grounds swept and all of the aftermath tossed in the dumpster, never to be looked at again, never the color spectrum he could only associate with his loss. So when he walked through town and saw her in every pot of verbena or baskets of peonies, he found there are more things to despite about life.

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 **note:** _i actually do not know anything abt flowers_


	4. item four

**Item four: laundry**

Laxus had not changed the sheets in weeks. Two weeks since she left, two weeks of him seeing her tear stained pillow cases right before he fell asleep. Two weeks of him waking up to the scent of her and him reaching for her, hopeful, but he only grabbed her empty side of the bed, dejected.

There was laundry she left in the dryer, forgotten for the more important things just within reach and perhaps the delicate silks and lace will be dust catchers; Laxus was too prideful to take them down. Or maybe he was too weak. He quite liked seeing bits and pieces of her here and there, skillful stabs to the space between his ribs, the cage of an angry monster never calm; hungry for anything she's ever touched.

(The beast behind his ribs was more restless since she was gone; "Where is she, what the fuck did you do now?")

Her scent permeated tiny crevices of his house: the big throw pillows on his sofa smelled just like her perfume, the table cloth which he swore still carry the aroma of whatever she had ever cooked, the curtains she washed in her flowery soap, the bathroom, the backyard. Her towel, God, it smelled like the time of night when he was so tired he just buried his face into her hair. He couldn't wear his clothes without catching himself smiling because he'd think she just took it off but the realization would settle in, hand in hand with crushing heartache.

He thought of burning his house. A property leased in his name but built by the two of them and ruined by the same people. Everything in it was so saturated in her that he couldn't move without feeling like he was a voyeur into a home that turned into just a living structure: cold and empty because she was gone. Maybe the fire would plug up his nose, send acrid smoke down his lungs and leave no more room for remorse.

So he consoled himself with the idea of selling it, maybe moving back into the miserable bachelor pad he only slept in even though he knew that wasn't going to happen.

(Maybe he was still waiting for her to come home.)


	5. item five

**Item five: Alexandria**

Not a what, a who. Mirajane's tiny Maltese who had been left sleeping in his cozy kennel in the guest room was upset the morning after his mommy scooped everything up in the storm of her leaving, somehow leaving him behind (Laxus thought: _you're not the only one_ ). All morning the white poof of fur whined and yapped, butting his tiny head against Laxus's ankles, yet another thing demanding _where is she, Laxus, what did you do this time?_

Tiny blue eyes that look just as pitiful as Mirajane's had been peer at Laxus the whole day. Alexandria looked very much like a kicked puppy even as the big man sagged on his feet beside the dog, weak after a long day of misery. He handed baby Strauss the pretty treats that usually made him happy but at the end of the day Laxus guessed it wasn't just himself who was too distressed to eat.

So he started to talk to the dog, in the way of those so desperate they expect animals to speak back.

 _Its not my fault you didn't wake up when I came home last night and your mother smelled wine and woman on me._

 _Its not my fault you slept past all she yelled from I've had enough and this is the last straw and you will be alone forever._

 _Its really not my fault you missed you ride out of my life, pal._

They sat together in the companionable silence of the left behind until Lisanna, so tight lipped and stone faced, peeked her head into the doorway and called the puppy to her, away from the big bad monster and left as quickly and quietly as she came, taking what Laxus thought was left of his family.

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 **note:** i love that mirajane has a canon doggy im so happy. o yeah and also the chapters are kinda doing that disjointed thing like this chapter is the day after Mira left and the second one was maybe a month later, the third one a few months after and the fourth one obviously two weeks post breakup? haha k


	6. item six

**Item six: the ring**

Predictably, it was the item that hurt the most.

A platinum band with a solitaire sapphire and a smattering of tiny white diamonds, the one that cost half of an S-Class mission's reward. Laxus remembered walking past the pastel-colored jewelry shop on the sleepy side of Crocus on the way home from a mission, remembered the odd pull that took him through the skinny door with his team trailing confusedly behind him. He remembered seeing the blue of her eyes winking at him from behind a glass display and the jeweler quoting a sum that made the Raijinshuu gasp. He remembered buying it, he remembered threatening his friends not to say a word, he remembered it weighing like a brick in his pocket on the rest of the walk home.

Prominent in his memory was that he had no intention of proposing. That was way too far and tentative in his future but he came home and Mirajane looked so happy to see him so before he could talk himself out of it, he took the ring out of his pocket and put it on her palm. There'd been no ceremony, no grand words that didn't need to be heard and spoken. " _I love you. Think about it,"_ was all the poetry he could muster before he sat down to pick at the food on her plate.

When he got into bed with her that night, the ring was on her finger and he supposed that was that.

Too bad he wasn't able to add a wedding ring to the jewelry on her finger. Too many arguments, too much of her crying because _he_ didn't think about what he'd asked her that night he gave her the ring. It took him three days to pick it up off the floor from after she'd tossed it at him and it rebounded off his chest. Of course she wouldn't stay and he hadn't expected her to, but he did wish she kept the ring and disposed of it on her own.

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 **note:** Idk every time I think about their engagement story, there's never any sappy story, no grand revelation, no life or death prompt. I think at some point, Mirajane stopped waiting for it and one day, it just struck Laxus to propose and it was so _normal_ and boring. Which was fine with Mirajane. They're like that couple who's been together for so long it's just a "right moment" thing instead of a necessity? And golly im so sorry if ur looking for an explanation to the plot of this thing. I haven't figured it out myself except that Laxus cheated on Mirajane. #WasteYourTime2016

This is a done deal! There's like, a part two series for this called _the things she bought with her_ and it's gonna be from Mirajane's POV. Of course it's gonna be vague because I like vague and I don't want to just put everything out there but I promise some light will be shed on this. Laxus is such an unreliable narrative smh


End file.
